Are You Mistaking Weight for Failure?
Wade Mitzel | Struggle Well
Have you ever heard a phrase that immediately took root in your mind?
Not because it was clever.
But because it felt true.
Today we begin a four-part exploration of a phrase that did exactly that for me.
On a Tuesday morning in mid-February, my friend Wade Mitzel wrote a post.
By Wednesday, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
By Thursday, we were on a call unpacking two words I had never heard paired together before:
Struggle well.
The more we talked, the more I realized this wasn’t a slogan.
It was a distinction.
What if you’re not failing?
What if this season is simply heavy?
You’re still showing up.
Still carrying responsibility.
Still answering the email.
Still making the call.
Nothing is on fire.
And yet something feels different.
Not sharp enough to alarm you.
Not loud enough to name easily.
Just… constant.
A weight that doesn’t spike.
It settles.
And because you’re capable,
you adjust.
You compensate.
You push a little longer.
You carry a little more.
From the outside, it still looks strong.
Inside, it takes more effort than it used to.
Most of us are not falling apart.
We are simply carrying more than we were meant to carry alone.
Last week, I asked a simple question in a survey:
When sustained pressure builds in leadership or life, what is your first instinctive response?
Here’s what you said:
Carry it alone — 11%
Push harder — 15%
Stay quiet & move on — 56%
Ask for support — 18%
More than half of you chose:
Stay quiet and move on.
Not collapse.
Not complain.
Not even push harder.
Just keep moving.
Struggle rarely announces itself.
It absorbs.
It hides in competence.
It disguises itself as professionalism.
That’s the terrain we’re standing on.
Wade leads the University of Louisville Physicians Group. He’s also a dad walking through a deeply personal season of uncertainty with his daughter.
In our conversation — and in a short video he recorded — he said something I haven’t stopped replaying:
“Leadership is not only about strategy and performance, it’s about presence.”
Presence when outcomes are uncertain.
Presence when people carry silent burdens.
Presence when you are carrying one yourself.
▶︎ Watch Wade share this in his own words.
Struggle Well: Leadership Is About Presence
He also said something simpler, but just as disruptive:
“When you hire a person… you hire the whole person.”
In our conversation, Wade unpacked what that really means.
We don’t hire fragments.
We don’t lead fragments.
We don’t live fragmented lives.
And yet many of us try.
Struggle Well as a Leader: What Hard Seasons Taught Me About Presence
We try to keep the personal weight from touching the professional role.
We try to prove that leadership means composure without cost.
But weight has a way of showing up anyway.
It shows up in shorter patience.
In thinner margins.
In quiet fatigue that doesn’t fully leave.
It’s not only the people at the top of the org chart feeling the pressure.
But often that’s where it starts.
And it trickles down.
Expectations compress.
Timelines tighten.
Margins narrow.
Before long, everyone is wearing busy and weary as badges of honor.
People are carrying more than anyone sees…
until “suddenly” they cannot.
Collapse always looks sudden.
It rarely is.
The real question may not be:
“Are you struggling?”
It may be: How are you struggling?
Because there is a way to struggle that narrows you.
And there is a way to struggle that deepens you.
There is a way to carry pressure that slowly hardens you.
And there is a way to carry it that forms you.
Wade and I are still exploring that distinction.
We don’t have it mastered.
But we are convinced of this:
Struggle is not proof of failure.
It is often proof of responsibility.
And perhaps the first step toward struggling well
is simply telling the truth about the weight we’re carrying.
So as you move through this week, consider this:
Where has pressure become so normal
that you no longer call it what it is?
You don’t need to fix it.
You don’t need to solve it.
Just name it.
That may be where struggling well begins.
And this month, we’ll keep exploring what that could mean — together.
Will you take this month to notice how you’re carrying the weight?